I recently took a trip up .and I noticed that driving up long inclines my battery just drained to practically nothing.
When I got to level terrain it'd charge but to not to full level. and for my entire trip it didn't ever really charge much. However once I got down to lower altitudes and drove to my home It charged right up and has retained its charge.
There a couple of things wrong with this particular vehicle. first, that battery will not hold its charge; it also has a high pitched noise when started and only when accelerating. Where to start?
View 9 RepliesAbout a year and a half ago I moved from Chicago (500 feet above sea level) to Morelia, Mexico (6,200 feet above sea level). My gas mileage on my 2000 Ford Focus has plummeted, I used to get anywhere from 22 to 26 miles to the gallon around town in Chicago but I am lucky to get 14 or 15 here. Is it simply a function of altitude? I have a good mechanic, keep everything tuned up and in good shape.
View 6 RepliesI have a 2003 Acura MDX with 120,000 miles on it. I live on a mountain road that goes from 5,200 feet to 7,400 feet in 7 miles. When I head up the mountain and go around switchbacks, at the higher altitudes the power steering goes out when it's very hot outside and I usually have the air conditioner on. I've had the power steering and sensors replaced twice and it hasn't worked.
View 2 RepliesWas sitting in my car on my lunch break playing the radio and had my seat heater on, and all of a sudden my radio kinda went staticy and died and my car completely died. Had to power it back down then back up to get it running, battery didn't show very low, but when I went into start mode (non accessory) it immediatly started the ICE and charged.
View 19 RepliesI drive a 2010 Toyota Corolla, 1.8L vehicle. We recently went on vacation to Colorado and somewhere around Fairplay, CO, which is about 9500 feet above sea level, our relatively new car with only about 47K just died in the middle of the road where there was not shoulder or cell phone service. I pulled over the best I could and popped the hood after several attempts to restart to no avail. I removed the decorative plastic engine cover and looked at it long enough to realize I did not know anything to do or try, reinstalled the cover and closed the hood. I was then able to restart the car and go a little further.
It did happen to us one more time and again after a few minutes on the side of the road with the hood open I was able to start it. I was very surprised that there was no check engine light when I was able to restart the car. I would expect if the engine just dies in the middle of driving that it would at least produce a code where I could have some idea of what was going on. I have read about vapor lock, but it sounds like it is more likely to happen on older cars with a carburetor and with the fuel pump under the hood instead of in the fuel tank. Should I try higher octane fuel?
I've got a 2000 F350 crew cab with a camper I bought in Chile and I'm going to be driving it from the tip of south america back to the US. It's a 9 month epic family road trip. It'll involve crossing the Andes several times and going over 15,000 ft. There are roads up to 19,500 ft in various places.
My question is am I going to have problems with the altitude? What can i do about it? I've got another truck which is a unimog, it's slow as hell but has a special kind of booster gas you can inject in to the engine to get it started in very cold weather and at high altitude. I chose the F350 for the truck instead of the unimog because a unimog is slow as hell (think 40mph max speed), but it handles extreme conditions well.
We're currently RV camping in the Wyoming Wind River Range at 8500 ft and is getting to freezing at night. The past two mornings the truck has been very difficult to start and I got quite a bit of smoke. This morning it took two or three tries but I got it going.
View 3 RepliesI've been told that my 12V battery was low.
I stumbled on this ATV/ motorcycle battery companion in the garage, can I use it to charge my prius?
I've had the car for about 24 hours. I love it so far. My one question seems to be that the battery doesn't seem to charge all the way up. There seems to be room for 2 more bars to be completely full. Is this normal? Something to be concerned about? How this works, but if it is supposed to be full to the top, I probably should go back to the dealer?
View 8 RepliesI'm wondering if there's a way to force the ICE to charge the HV battery, either while standing or driving. Currently, EV Mode kicks in while coasting down a hill, and I would rather use those moments to effectively charge the battery rather than trickle charge with what little gain that gravity gives me.
I know there was a way on other models to charge the battery while standing by depressing the accelerator in park (or in drive with the brake depressed), but neither method works with the 2015 Prius C. The battery continues to drain while the ICE runs in park, and it refuses to run in D or B while the brake and accelerator are pressed at the same time.
On the Gen III Prius, is the Battery indicator that is displayed on the HSI an actual 0-100% charge indication of the battery?
View 2 RepliesI've had my C a week and a half and it is doing great, but I wonder if the system is ok. It has never shown the battery at 100%. My Civic would charge all the way quite often.
View 19 RepliesTook my C to the local drive through car wash as it was pretty crusty looking from all of the rain we've had lately. I had my A/C on as its a nice and warm sunny Florida day. Pulled inside and put my C in Neutral to go through the wash and half way through my car started beeping like mad and flashing the "!" in a triangle symbol and on the small screen it said something to the effect of "Cannot charge traction battery when car is in 'N'." My HVAC system drained down the traction battery and since the car was in neutral the engine couldn't keep it above the minimum SOC level. Turned the air off and anxiously waited for the car wash to hurry up so I could put it in drive. After I put the car in drive the SOC read 1 blue bar and took FOREVER to charge back (or perhaps it just seemed that way because I was freaking out..)
View 17 RepliesI am thinking of installing amp in 2010 prius. Question how is the 12v battery keeps its charge. I am assuming the amp will be drawing power from 12v battery. When the engine kicks on during driving it is charging the hybrid battery. I am afraid of killing the power from 12v battery.
View 5 RepliesPrius battery charge display is not very meaningful. Those line bars are not telling me much.
View 1 RepliesSeen the battery charge level at 100%? The battery charge display seems to never go up to the top bar. I think I may have noticed it once, but I might have been dreaming that.
View 18 RepliesI see this was discussed back in 06 but not resolved. Maybe more owners have had additional experiences with this.
View 18 RepliesIs it possible to do a long charge of the hybrid battery with a regular battery charger? If so how?
View 5 RepliesI've bought a used prius v ,the mileage is now 72k and as of monday (2 days ago) the maintenance reqd light came on intermittently when I start the car. So, I checked and saw that this meant it was due for a service, no big deal.
I don't know if it's linked but Monday I drove about 360 miles and then last night (Tuesday) I noticed my battery drained quickly on a 7 mile trip , it went down to 2 bars (they became blue on the car display) and took forever to go back up. Then same thing this afternoon but funnily enough, not this morning.
I know car likes to shut off at 3-4 bar, but what if I want to keep the battery closer to full in order to get more power. Is there any way to tell the computer to keep engine running?
View 19 Replies